southernhybrid
Contributor
Trump and Netanyahu certainly are dictators or perhaps I should say dictator wanna bes. Anyone with half a brain who lives in the US knows that Trump is rapidly heading us towards an autocracy. Plus there are different levels of dictatorship. We aren't quite fully under total autocratic rule, but tRump is heading us in that direction. Trump is going after his own citizens if they disagree with him. He's a dangerous, mentally incompetent man. I've never seen anything like this in my life and I'm old. Sadly, he has the entire Republican Party in his dictatorial cult, and they don't have the courage to stand up to him. He's done plenty of things that are unconstitutional and/or illegal and he disobeys the courts, and ignores things that were passed by Congress, like cutting out programs to help the poor in other nations, cutting out money for scientific research, among a long list of other things. Go read the site Right wing watch to get a taste of where the cult is trying to lead us. They want a strict Christian theocratic form of government. They even want to take away the right of women to vote, make birth control illegal, ban religious minorities from coming into the country.
And, imo, watching what Netanyahu is doing to Israel sure makes him look like he had tendencies to act like a dictator. He's very unpopular but a lot of the citizens of Israel are afraid to speak up. Some Israeli soldiers have spoken to reporters about how they feel about what Nettie is doing, but they usually remain anonymous out of fear. He may not be as crooked as Trump, but he certainly seems to act like a dictator or a dictator wanna be.
I'll give you an example and maybe if I have the time to waste, I'll add some more later.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/can-anything-stop-a-donald-trump-dictatorship
There are certainly levels of dictatorship but Trump is leaning heavily into one where he criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. To you really think deporting immigrants, including many who have legitimate visas and/or have been seeking asylum, to countries like El Salvador or South Sudan would be done by anyone who wasn't a cruel dictator. Sadly our fucking Supreme Count just upheld his right at least for now to send these people to countries where they never lived or have even visited. Trump is a dictator as his actions meet almost every characteristic of how a dictator is defined. He hasn't yet cancelled any elections, but like many dictators, his Republican cronies have and are doing their best to suppress the vote in areas that lean left. Some want to take away the vote of women. You obviously don't know much about what's happening in the US. Wise up and do some DD regarding the threat that Trump is to my country.
And, imo, watching what Netanyahu is doing to Israel sure makes him look like he had tendencies to act like a dictator. He's very unpopular but a lot of the citizens of Israel are afraid to speak up. Some Israeli soldiers have spoken to reporters about how they feel about what Nettie is doing, but they usually remain anonymous out of fear. He may not be as crooked as Trump, but he certainly seems to act like a dictator or a dictator wanna be.
No. I think you must be ignorant regarding what's happening in my country. There are numerous articles online that give evidence of Trump being or trying to be a dictator. Our democracy is under threat. You have no idea what's happening here. We are not yet in full blown autocracy, but unless we can stop the maniacal psychopath who is in charge of our government, we are on the way to it.How ironic. What free world are you referring to, when both Trump and Netanyahu are more like dictators then leaders of the free world? The so called free world is under attack from its own leaders. If these two can't be removed from their positions, we are fucked!Get off your high horse. Your moral stance would doom us all to be slaves under amoral authoritarian regimes. If the liberal regimes (ie pro democracy) aren't willing to fight for what we believe in we will lose it.
Hand wringing and clinging to impossibly high moral standards (which you are doing) would condemn us all to passivity and helplessness. Its not being a good person. Its being an enabler of evil
You talk like the U.S. during the War on Terror—saying we had to defend freedom, then torturing detainees, drone-striking weddings, and invading Iraq based on lies. That wasn’t strength. It was a moral collapse disguised as strategy.
Did we stop terrorism that way? No. We radicalized entire regions, destroyed our credibility, and made the world more dangerous. That’s the cost of “fighting evil” by abandoning principle.
Clinging to moral limits isn’t passivity—it’s what keeps democracies from becoming what they claim to fight. If you think we save civilization by bombing it into submission, you haven’t learned a thing from history.
NHC
Let's agree to disagree. I'd just prefer it if more in the west are willing to fight for our democratic freedoms.
Or as an Iranian friend said recently, right now Europe doesn't deserve its freedoms. We seem to prefer cruising on the work of our ancestors and whine pathetically about the state of the world.
Yes, some times interventions fail. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. Dictators need to fear the free world. Or we are fucked
I think this is the attitude my friend was talking about. I suggest you live a while in a dictatorship. I think you'll change your attitude real fucking fast.
If you feel safe to express your opinion on this forum, then you are privileged today.
Iran punishes people for things they say in private chats. Stuff vaguely critical of the regime. Having a private chat hidden from the government is illegal. If they catch an expat Iranian express something they don't like online, they'll punish the family
Trump and Netanyahu are not dictators. That's just ignorant.
I'll give you an example and maybe if I have the time to waste, I'll add some more later.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/can-anything-stop-a-donald-trump-dictatorship
There are certainly levels of dictatorship but Trump is leaning heavily into one where he criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. To you really think deporting immigrants, including many who have legitimate visas and/or have been seeking asylum, to countries like El Salvador or South Sudan would be done by anyone who wasn't a cruel dictator. Sadly our fucking Supreme Count just upheld his right at least for now to send these people to countries where they never lived or have even visited. Trump is a dictator as his actions meet almost every characteristic of how a dictator is defined. He hasn't yet cancelled any elections, but like many dictators, his Republican cronies have and are doing their best to suppress the vote in areas that lean left. Some want to take away the vote of women. You obviously don't know much about what's happening in the US. Wise up and do some DD regarding the threat that Trump is to my country.
The courts, Congress, and the military are unlikely to resist the Trump administration’s tidal wave of illegality.
President Donald Trump, in his second term, is rapidly moving the United States away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism capped by unrestricted one-man rule.
He has repeatedly and flagrantly disregarded the law. The disregard has included the gutting and disestablishment of agencies whose existence and budgets are based on acts of Congress. It has includedmass firings and targeted dismissals of officials while ignoring legal requirements to show cause and ensure due process.
The law enforcement powers of the government have been blatantly weaponized, politicized, and deployed against anyone Trump considers a political or personal adversary, even in the absence of a prosecutable crime. Despite the president’s duty under Article II of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump has refused to enforce regulatory laws that he does not happen to like.
With some undocumented immigrants being thrown into a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump has talked openly about extending similar treatment to US citizens. US citizens have already been swept up, whether inadvertently or otherwise, in the administration’s mass deportations.
In a further affront to freedom of speech, Trump has ordered criminal investigations of former officials because they said something publicly that disagreed with Trump’s assertions, such as his lie about the 2020 election. He has attacked freedom of the press, such as by punishing a wire service over a mere choice of words.
He has eliminated most checks within the executive branch against arbitrary and illegal behavior. This has included the wholesale firing of inspectors general and sidelining the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.
He has extended his power grab to institutions that are not even part of the executive branch. He has guttedfederally chartered research institutions and subjected them to crippling takeovers. An assault on private universities is intended to bend them into submission regarding their curricula, hiring, and admissions policies.